“That one can convince one’s opponents with printed reasons, I have not believed since the year 1764. It is not for that purpose that I have taken up my pen, but rather merely to annoy them, and to give strength and courage to those on our side, and to make it known to the others that they have not convinced us.”
G.C. Lichtenberg (1742 – 1799), courtesy of 'Deogolwulf'

Sunday, 26 February 2017

The Sunday Rumble: 26.2.17

Right, stop all that progress - NOW! Yesterday 'SoD' descended to, er, sort out my computer - yeeeees, quite! The end result is that everything's the same and everything's different and it's driving me nuts! Why can't they - yes, it's always "they" - just leave things alone because it takes me years to get the hang of it all every time they change something. Needless to say, I blame 'SoD' and he blames Microsoft!

And stop all that Oscar crap as well! And yes, you're right, I am 'Mr. Grumpy' this morning. I gather that most of the 'luvvies' who are up for a prize this evening are planning to provide us all (or 'you all' because I will not be watching!) with endless anti-Trump speeches. How can I put this? In a very deep and meaningful way, do I give a flying crap what Ms. Meryl Streep thinks (I use the word with my fingers crossed) about President Trump? I just hope that the brain-dead of America switch off in their zillions!

Trump gets his retaliation in first: He's not totally bonkers, that Trump fella', despite what all those snooty White House scribblers would have us believe. He has returned his invitation to their annual dinner in which he would have been savaged. I never thought much of all that 'palsy-walsy' stuff between Presidents and scribblers, it gave the latter a totally false sense of their own importance. Dandruff-ridden, smelly socks, waste-tip scavengers is what they are, or at least, it's what they should be!

Booker is on good form today: First of all he - or at least his best friend, grumpy Richard North - insist that Hitler never had any intention of invading Britain in 1940, so that settles our mini-debate from the other day because no-one in their right mind would pick an argument with Richard North! Also, Booker provides a brief history of the sleazy efforts of m' Lords and m' Ladies to avoid making members of the House of Lords own up to being in receipt of EU dosh when they stand up to debate matters European. Well worth a read.

Keynes and Europe: In pursuit of an argument I was having on another blog - well, I can be a bit contrary from time to time! - I was pointed to an article by Robert Skidelsky which contained this little gem:

In 1940, immediately after the fall of France to the Germans, the economist John Maynard Keynes wrote to a correspondent: “Speaking for myself I now feel completely confident for the first time that we will win the war.”

I couldn't have put it better myself, well, I mean, I was only one year old at the time!

Ding, dong, the witch is, er, still alive, actually:According to those very naughty boys and girls at Breitbart, opposition to President Trump is so pathetic and useless that the Dems have sunk even lower than Hollywood 'luvvies' at the Oscars in order to find an effective means of opposing him. They have turned to a witches' coven which will summon up a spell to bind the president:

Apparently these witches will cast their spells every time there is a crescent moon waning. Tell me that isn't Hillary in the background!

So no change there then! I was intrigued to read that the Democratic party had elected a new leader, some chap called Thomas Perez. There's 'Good News' and 'Bad News'! The 'Good News' is that he defeated, but only just, one of the worst sort of black, Islamic, American agitator-politicians who was ferociously anti-Israel. The 'Bad News' is, according to The American Thinker, that the winner, Mr. Perez, is not much better! He was one of Obama's more fanatical lawyers who bent every law that he could in order to make it submit to his own and his master's political will. Maybe, just maybe, Trump will not be too bad compared to what may come!

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Outlook is the reason there is so much damage to my computer. All the dents and chipped off pieces make for interesting explanations when other people look at my desk top. As for the keyboard, it is holding up okay though I blame its disfigured form for any typos.

The Hollywood and media elite are constantly reminding America why they lost and middle America won. They are losers of the worst kind and don't mind doubling down from their insulated and protected perches in front of adoring fans and groupies. To put an exclamation point on the whole pile of their sorry breed, the DNC finally picks a new chairman...and he is an Obama style Marxist. They are incapable of learning which explains why their ideology never dies away as it should like the rotting mess that is Venezuela today.

Microsoft used to make great operating systems, then good operating systems -- now they make WINDOWS 10.

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The way Microsoft does thing is they design for what will bring in new customers - us old customers are probably to addicted to turn the thing off, and our usage is to embedded in their programs to be worth the effort to go to a different platform.

Move over, Venezuela, the new national bete noire of the Fox News crowd is Sweden; probably because that Marxist Bernie Sanders likes their health care system. Fox and Trump have dumped on them twice lately, even though they have no idea what they're talking about:

A trans-Atlantic wave of puzzlement is rippling across Sweden for the second time in a week, after a prominent Fox News program featured a "Swedish defense and national security advisor" who's unknown to the country's military and foreign-affairs officials.

Swedes, and some Americans, have been wondering about representations of the Nordic nation in the U.S. since President Donald Trump invoked "what's happening last night in Sweden" while alluding to past terror attacks in Europe during a rally Feb. 18. There hadn't been any major incident in Sweden the previous night. ...

Bob, when it comes to matters 'Yerdy-Durble', or Swedish, if you prefer, there is no better reporter than the distinguished and current editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson. He is a true-born Scot but married to a Swedish lady which means that he spends time there and gets to know the things that escape others. I urge you to read this:

No one that reads "real" news would deny the countries of Europe have problems with immigrants, but Nelson never refutes that Trump was wrong specifically, and in fact, he seems to quite like Sweden:

"Sweden is not a country that is falling apart. You can still land in Stockholm’s gorgeous Arlanda airport, skate on the frozen lakes in special lanes polished by the local authorities, cook sausages on the communal barbecues. The Scandinavian paradise is still there, welcoming and inspiring. The government has, after great upheaval, managed to cut the refugee influx by four fifths."

Nice try at defending The Donald. It's a nearly impossible task at best.

Must do better, Bob! You don't need to go scratching around to find out that Fraser Nelson is a free market conservative - I already told you that he's the editor of 'The Speccie' - 'nuff said! And whilst he obviously loves Sweden he is not oblivious to its errors, most of which as he emphasises, stem from the soppy social democrat government that ran things there for most of the time. Yes, Trump was wrong for being too specific - I suspect it was a confusion which does not surprise me with that man - but had he kept his opinion more general he would have been dead right.

No need to be sorry David, the reason this is the only opinion site I look at lately is that I want my assumptions challenged, and not everything you read is goofy wingnut stuff. Tino Sanandaji seems a balanced individual judging from the linked piece, though his disparaging "the media" is gratuitous.

Sanandaji's most salient points are:

"Finally, it is worth emphasizing that the focus on overall crime statistics avoids the actual question being discussed: the situation in immigrant-dominated areas with low socioeconomic status. Around 95 percent of the Swedish population lives outside these areas. Hence, it takes a lot for crime trends in the “ghettoes” of Sweden to dominate overall trends. Four fifths of the population in Sweden are not immigrants. The overall crime trend and the effect of immigration on crime are therefore two different topics." ...

"The last time there was an official report breaking down crime statistics by immigrant status and origin was in 2005, for the years 1997 to 2001. These statistics confirmed that immigrants were significantly overrepresented amongst offenders, in particular in committing violent crimes. The foreign born were four times more likely to be suspects in homicide cases than those with Swedish origin, and 4.5 times more likely to be suspects in rape cases."

So nothing there is surprising or even especially insightful. Crime is higher in ghettoes that contain immigrants. The same has always been true everywhere as far as I know.

Trump is at heart a salesman, and he's better at it than most conventional pols. He vaguely and inaccurately exaggerated the problem of immigration in a famously liberal country. It's only slightly more sophisticated than his blather that most Mexican immigrants are drug dealers or rapists and Muslims are all likely terrorists. The tide of foreigners is one of the scary things he can save us from, see? It's been popular political showmanship all over the Western world for decades, not that there's no truth in it at all. Don't forget Obama was called "the deporter in chief".